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04 April, 2010

Wildlife Trade and Destruction: A Disgrace to Mankind

With the recent voting down on proposals to protect sharks at the UN conference on endangered species, the future for the endangered sharks is very bleak. Millions of hammerhead and whitetip are extracted from seas each year, mainly to satisfy a burgeoning appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food in Chinese communities around the world.

The nations gathered in Doha, Qatar, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, rejected proposals that would have required countries to strictly regulate — but not ban — trade in several species of scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish sharks. NYT

What is very sad and shameful about all this destruction, is that - some of the wealthiest countries in the world are the most exploiters of wildlife:

Japan, even with the rapid decline in the numbers of whales and tuna, continues to mercilessly and aggressively fish for endangered whales and the bluefin tuna. Shamefully, Japan continues to hunt for whales while pretending that the whales are needed for lab testing purposes.

In the US, wildlife trafficking and trade, is a multi-billion industry. The US, by far, continues to be the main destination for captured wild birds and animals; each day - wild birds and animals, many of which are on the endangered list, cross in to the United States, to be sold and inhumanely kept as 'pets'. The way these birds are trapped, captured and transported, is most cruel and barbaric; and the way, they are kept as 'pets' is a big shame to Americans. Shamefully too, parts of many animals like chopped elephant legs, turtle shells, bear paws and heads, tiger heads and skins, furs etc. - are used as decorations or as status symbols in America.

Mark twain said: Of all the creatures ever made [man] is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one... that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. And he went on to point out: It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

And George Orwell in 'Animal Farm' states: Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. Lord of all animals we are. But we have been a most unkind, brutal and merciless lord.

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"I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses" ~ Nelson Mandela

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity" ~ George Bernard Shaw